Social Media Editors and the Audience Funnel: Tensions between Commercial Pressures and Professional Norms in the Data-Saturated Newsroom

The Promoter, Celebrity, and Joker Roles in Journalists’ Social Media Performance

Social Media + Society ◽

10.1177/2056305121990643 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 205630512199064

Author(s):

Claudia Mellado ◽

Alfred Hermida

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Professional Norms ◽

Starting Point ◽

Private And Public ◽

Media Performance

One of the main challenges of studying journalistic roles in social media practice is that the profession’s conceptual boundaries have become increasingly blurred. Social media has developed as a space used by audiences to consume, share, and discuss news and information, offering novel locations for journalists to intervene at professional and personal levels and in private and public spheres. This article takes the “journalistic ego” domain as its starting point to examine how journalists perform three specific roles on social media: the promoter, the celebrity, and the joker. To investigate these roles in journalistic performance, the article situates their emergence and operationalization in a broader epistemological context, examining how journalists engage with, contest, and/or diverge from different professional norms and practices, as well as the conflict between traditional and social media-specific roles of journalists.

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Social media in Uganda: revitalising news journalism?

Media Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/0163443719900353 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 42 (3) ◽

pp. 380-397

Author(s):

Florence Namasinga Selnes ◽

Kristin Skare Orgeret

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Freedom Of Expression ◽

Media Freedom ◽

Daily Work ◽

Professional Norms

The article discusses the role of social media in relation to the traditional journalistic sphere in Uganda. Through an analysis of how journalists in three Ugandan newspapers use social media in their daily work, the article discusses how social media affect conventional sourcing practices, reportage and professional norms. The article is particularly interested in how Facebook and Twitter serve as alternative channels through which sources with less access to traditional means of communication get their message(s) across to journalists. The findings are discussed in light of the present development of social media legislation in Uganda. The discussions feed into a larger reflection on social media’s potential to create avenues of access in a semi-democratic setting where attempts to curtail media freedom and freedom of expression are frequent.

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